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Owing to the rarity and heterogeneity in biology and presentation, there are multiple areas in the diagnosis, treatment and follow-up of soft tissue sarcoma (STS), with no, low-level or conflicting evidence.During the first Consensus Conference on the State of Science in Sarcoma (CSSS), we used a modified Delphi process to identify areas of controversy in the field of sarcoma, to name topics with limited evidence-based data in which a scientific and knowledge gap may remain and a consensus statement will help to guide patient management. We determined scientific questions which need to be addressed in the future in order to generate evidence and to inform physicians and caregivers in daily clinical practice in order to improve the outcomes of patients with sarcoma. We conducted a vote on STS key questions and controversies prior to the CSSS meeting, which took place in May 2022.Sixty-two European sarcoma experts participated in the survey. Sixteen strong consensus (≥95%) items were identified by the experts, as well as 30 items with a ≥75% consensus on diagnostic and therapeutic questions. Ultimately, many controversy topics remained without consensus.In this manuscript, we summarise the voting results and the discussion during the CSSS meeting. Future scientific questions, priorities for clinical trials, registries, quality assurance, and action by stakeholders are proposed. Platforms and partnerships can support innovative approaches to improve management and clinical research in STS.

Nowadays laser scanners play an important role in technology and research, when it comes to measure 3D coordinates physically and in real time of any object under observation. Laser scanners have to measure the 3D coordinates of these objects in shortest time and with the smallest measuring error. A novel laser scanner called Technical Vision System (TVS), which uses Dynamic Triangulation and DC motors, was developed and proven to represent a fast and reliable scanning system. Previous research used the step response of the TVS mechanical actuators (DC motors), which can overshoot if certain controller parameters of the closed-loop control are selected. If the overshoot is undesirable, a trade-off must be made between speed and overshoot of the step response. Thereby, present paper describes a new approach to control the actual angular position of the TVS DC motors using a trapezoidal profile for the DC Motor velocity. The DC motors step response is replaced by a trajectory response, which allows the reduction of the relative angular error of the DC motors shaft to a value less than or equal to 0.1 percent. Also, the design of the control system, to implement the trapezoidal trajectory profile for the DC motor velocity in practice, is described in detail.

Purpose Following the emergency use authorization of BNT162b2 by the Food and Drug administration (FDA) in early December 2020, mRNA- and vector-based vaccines became an important means of reducing the spread and mortality of the COVID-19 pandemic. The European Medicines Agency labelled immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) as a rare adverse reaction of unknown frequency after vector-, but not mRNA-vaccination. Here, we report on the long-term outcome of 6 patients who were diagnosed with de-novo, vaccine-associated ITP (VA-ITP), and on the outcome of subsequent SARS-CoV-2 re-vaccinations. Methods Patients were included after presenting to our emergency department. Therapy was applied according to ITP guidelines. Follow-up data were obtained from outpatient departments. Both mRNA- or vector-based vaccines were each used in 3 cases, respectively. Results In all patients, the onset of symptoms occurred after the 1st dose of vaccine was applied. 5 patients required treatment, 3 of them 2nd line therapy. All patients showed a complete response eventually. After up to 359 days of follow-up, 2 patients were still under 2nd line therapy with thrombopoietin receptor agonists. 5 patients have been re-vaccinated with up to 3 consecutive doses of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines, 4 of them showing stable platelet counts hereafter. Conclusion Thrombocytopenia after COVID-19 vaccination should trigger a diagnostic workup to exclude vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia (VITT) and, if confirmed, VA-ITP should be treated according to current ITP guidelines. Re-vaccination of patients seems feasible under close monitoring of blood counts and using a vaccine that differs from the one triggering the initial episode of VA-ITP.

Problem. Laser scanning devices are widely used in Machine Vision Systems (MVS) of an autonomous mobile robot for solving SLAM problems. One of the concerns with MVS operation is the ability to detect relatively small obstacles. This requires scanning a limited sector within the field of view or even focusing on a specific point of space. The accuracy of the laser beam positioning is hampered by various kinds of uncertainties both due to the model simplifying and using inaccurate values of its parameters, as well as lacking information about perturbations. Goal. This paper presents the improvement of the MVS, described in previous works of the authors, by robust control of the DC motor, which represents the Positioning Laser drive. Methodology. For this purpose, a DC motor model is built, taking into account the parametric uncertainty. A robust digital PD controller for laser positioning is designed, and a comparative evaluation of the robust properties of the obtained control system with a classical one is carried out. The PWM signal formation by the microcontroller and processes in the H-bridge are also taken into account. Results. The obtained digital controller meets the transient process and accuracy requirements and combines the simplicity of a classic controller with a weak sensitivity to the parametric uncertainties of the drive model. Originality. The originality of the paper is in its focus on the MVS of the autonomous mobile robot developed by the authors. Practical value. The implementation of the MVS with the proposed controller will increase the reliability of obstacles detection within a robot field of view and the accuracy of environment mapping.

In this chapter, the authors design, simulate, and implement an optimal controller for a rotary pendulum while addressing real-world phenomena. The controller, called linear-quadratic-regulator (LQR), minimizes a cost function based on weights that penalize the system's state error and controller effort. The control objective is to reach the desired system state in an optimal way. The rotary pendulum consists of a pendulum attached to a rotary arm actuated by a motor. It is a great system to design and analyze different types of controllers. This system is underactuated, nonlinear, sensitive to initial conditions, and has 2 DOF. This chapter's main contributions are the mathematical modeling of the system taking into account nonlinear friction, the characterization of the plant using measured data from the physical system using the nonlinear squares and the trust-region reflective algorithms, comparison of linear and nonlinear behaviors, and implementation on real hardware considering discrete phenomena while using hardware-provided tools such as position decoding and PWM generation.

Nowadays, laser vision systems have allowed the development of different applications such as reverse engineering, manufacturing, navigation systems and, structural health monitoring (SHM). However, most of the machine vision systems for structural behavior analysis have restricted field of view, consume high levels of computational resources for image processing and require special illumination conditions to achieve lower error rates. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to present a technical vision system (TVS) for structural behavior analysis using dynamic laser triangulation and k- Nearest Neighbor (k-NN) machine learning regression algorithm. The proposed vision system was tested in order to demonstrate the practicality of it, different deformations and displacements were analyzed over real structures in controlled laboratory conditions to assure the reproducibility of the experimentation. The TVS prototype proved to be a reliable option on SHM tasks, presenting balance between precision and operating ranges, without the issues aforementioned.

Diagnosis of residual or recurrent tumor in soft-tissue sarcomas (STS) is a differential diagnostic challenge since post-therapeutic changes impede diagnosis.To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of quantitative dynamic contrast enhanced (DCE)-MRI and diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) to detect local recurrence of STS of the limb.Prospective.A totalof 64 consecutive patients with primary STS of the limbs were prospectively included 3-6 months after surgery between January 2016 and July 2021.A 1.5 T; axial DWI echo-planar imaging sequences and DCE-MRI using a 3D T1-weighted spoiled gradient-echo sequence.The quantitative DCE-MRI parameters relative plasma flow (rPF) and relative mean transit time (rMTT) were calculated and ADC mapping was used to quantify diffusion restriction. Regions of interest of tumor growth and postoperative changes were drawn in consensus by two experts for diffusion and perfusion analysis. An additional morphological assessment was done by three independent and blinded radiologists.Unpaired t-test, ROC-analysis, and a logistic regression model were applied. Interobserver reliability was calculated using Fleiss kappa statistics. A P value of 0.05 was considered statistically significant.A total of 11 patients turned out to have local recurrence. rPF was significantly higher in cases of local recurrence when compared to cases without local recurrence (61.1-4.5) while rMTT was slightly and significantly lower in local recurrence. ROC-analysis showed an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.95 (SEM ± 0.05) for rPF while a three-factor multivariate logistic regression model showed a high diagnostic accuracy of rPF (RDCE-MRI is a promising additional method to differentiate local recurrence from benign postoperative changes in STS of the limb. Especially specificity in detection of LR is increased compared to morphological assessment.1 TECHNICAL EFFICACY: Stage 2.

Nowadays artificial intelligence and swarm robotics become wide spread and take their approach in civil tasks. The main purpose of the article is to show the influence of common knowledge about surroundings sharing in the robotic group navigation problem by implementing the data transferring within the group. Methodology provided in article reviews a set of tasks implementation of which improves the results of robotic group navigation. The main questions for the research are the problems of robotics vision, path planning, data storing and data exchange. Article describes the structure of real-time laser technical vision system as the main environment-sensing tool for robots. The vision system uses dynamic triangulation principle. Article provides examples of obtained data, distance-based methods for resolution and speed control. According to the data obtained by provided vision system were decided to use matrix-based approach for robots path planning, it inflows the tasks of surroundings discretization, and trajectory approximation. Two network structure types for data transferring are compared. Authors are proposing a methodology for dynamic network forming based on leader changing system. For the confirmation of theory were developed an application of robotic group modeling. Obtained results show that common knowledge sharing between robots in-group can significantly decrease individual trajectories length.

Friction is one of the significant factors to degrade the transient accuracy of positioning systems. In this respect, the present paper proposes implementing a nonlinear control to perform friction compensation to improve the positioning accuracy for a controlled DC motor of a laser positioning system with friction, which is assumed to be appropriately described using a dynamic friction model. The global asymptotic positioning stability proof was performed using Lyapunov's direct method.

A functional material is a term used for a material with properties that fit a specific application. These properties can be intrinsic to a material, or the material can be tuned for obtaining the desired properties. Some materials can be used by themselves as functional materials, while others support functional materials. Zeolites are nanostructured porous materials that can be used as functional materials or used as supports for other functional materials. Quantum dots are luminescent materials with plenty of applications such as biomarkers, photocatalytic degradation, or biocides. However, the use of quantum dots is limited by the effect of moisture or heat on them. The applications of quantum dots can be improved if proper support is used. In this work, a brief overview of the use of zeolites as supports for quantum dots is offered, and their applications in optical devices are discussed.

Robotic group collaboration in a densely cluttered terrain is one of the main problems in mobile robotics control. This article describes the basic set of tasks solved to model a robotic group behavior during the distributed search of an object (goal) with parallel mapping. The navigation scheme uses the benefits of the authors' original technical vision system (TVS) based on dynamic triangulation principles. According to the TVS output data, fuzzy logic rules of resolution stabilization were implemented; with the aim to improve the data exchange. Modified dynamic communication network model and implemented the propagation of information with a feedback method to improve the data exchange inside the robotic group. For forming the continuous and energy-saving trajectory authors are proposing to use the two-steps post-processing method of path planning with polygon approximation. The combination of our collective TVS scans fusion and modified dynamic data exchange network forming method with adjustment of the known path planning methods can improve the robotic motion planning and navigation in unknown cluttered terrain. The authors presented the results of group effectiveness based on unique detected data, analysis of completion time, and entropy reduction results based on the size of a robot group.

Friction is a nonlinear phenomenon present in all mechanical systems and significantly impacts the control area. Currently, there exist a large number of systems that require precise positioning control to achieve optimal performance. The present paper seeks to estimate friction torque for a controlled direct-current motor (DC motor) for the positioning laser of a 3D machine vision system. The relative positioning error that causes this phenomenon using the LuGre friction model is identified. Later a feasible solution for high-performance positioning control for the positioning laser using friction compensation is proposed.